


Vertigo

by viceroyvonmutini



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceroyvonmutini/pseuds/viceroyvonmutini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Root it was undefinable. To Shaw it was a stupid escape plan and she wouldn't change it for the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tumblr user badwolfkaily: Root/Shaw Reunion Fluff.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure this constitutes as fluff but I mean...no one dies? So..10 points to me? 
> 
> Thank you for this prompt: I had half a document that I was just ignoring but this sort of made me finish it.

If Root was getting bored of storming Samaritan bases she didn’t voice it. The Machine’s instructions filtered through her earpiece and she obeyed with mechanical precision.

She had missed Her voice. She had lost everything in the span of a few short weeks: she didn’t sleep-she still didn’t sleep except at Her behest- as they worked tirelessly on the move to get Her functioning. She wasn’t the same and Root accepted that She never would be, but She was back and they were fighting on the offensive for once in this godforsaken war; hideously outnumbered but viciously determined.

Two precision shots and the guards in front of her collapsed. John had taken the upper levels and she the lower floors, planting C4 on structurally relevant pillars and walls.

She moved forward, following the stairwell down to the basement levels and entering a grey corridor lit by glaring fluorescent lights.

Probably some form of prison, mused Root. She’d seen enough Samaritan bases to know that the lower levels were usually like this: science labs developing microchips and faster processors or simply lines of rooms saved for hostages or maybe human experimentation she was never quite sure. The Machine would tell her if she asked. She didn’t really care: her job was to blow this place.

She ignored the doors, heading down the corridor weapons at the ready until she reached the final locked room.

Shooting off the lock she pushed open the door with little care. Reaching into the bag on her shoulder she pulled out its final item and stuck it to the wall, setting the charge.

The bag now empty she dropped it to floor.

‘Charges set,’ she declared to the voice in her earpiece.

_‘Can you get out Ms. Groves?’_

Root was already walking through the door and back the way she came.

‘I’ll be out-‘ she cut off, the Machine uttering a warning in her ear, ‘I’ve got company. Get John out. He has 2 minutes.’

_‘Ms. Groves-‘_

Root cut him off: now was not the time for a lecture. If John got out that was enough. She had her own problems to deal with.

Striding around the corner she was met with a dozen or so Samaritan operatives.

‘Hello boys.’

She didn’t get much more out as they started firing. Getting off a few well-placed shots of her own she lunged behind the nearby wall.

‘Any ideas?’ she asked the voice in her head.

Root made for a locked room a few doors back, shooting off the lock and pushing her way in.

Nothing. Empty; grey walls and a very small window. Her eyes fell on the window.

‘I’m not going to fit through that,’ she scolded. The Machine was never this stupid but apparently her situation was bad enough to warrant less than thought out plans.

‘Well, obviously. I’ve tried,’ remarked a voice.

It was too dark. All of sudden it was too dark. She couldn’t see who was speaking, not fully anyway. She needed to see.

‘You gonna give me a gun or what?’

The voice in her ear reminded her of the now very small window in which they had to escape and detailed an utterly ludicrous, completely idiotic plan of escape.

‘No,’ demanded Root, ‘I’m not doing that.’

The voice-that voice that shouldn’t be here but was it absolutely was but Root couldn’t dwell on that not now- seemed to know she wasn’t being spoken to, content to watch. Root might not be able to see but she could feel the eyes on her face.

She needed to get out. Now.

‘Think of another way,’ she demanded.

The reply was apparently enough.

‘Fine,’ spat out Root. She had never spoken to Her that way but she was risking losing something for Her again and if she were honest she wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

The voice moved from the shadows.

‘Here,’ she said, afraid any more words would break her.

Shaw took the gun from the outstretched hand, not at all perturbed by the way Root quickly moved on not wanted the prolonged contact and instead choosing to focus on the mission.

Getting her out. Getting Shaw out alive. That was her mission.

Root’s mouth curved in a repressed smile. Now wasn’t the time.

‘Gonna tell me the plan?’

‘There are C4 charges rigged to explode in about 15 seconds. When I say run: run.’

Shaw quirked an eyebrow but Root wasn’t looking.

‘You didn’t think this through did you?’

Root didn’t answer. She didn’t even tell her. She knew Shaw was here and She never said a word. Root would have walked out of here and left her to die and She knew.

‘Not really.’

Shaw waited-probably the most tense 10 seconds of her life as Root picking off the Samaritan agents that had followed her around the corner. Shaw fired a few rounds. She was rusty by her standards but they fell like bricks.

Root shot her a look.

Shaw shrugged.

‘They tortured me.’

Root seemed to visibly flinch at the words, concentration lost for just a second. Instead she smirked with doting affection.

‘Run.’

It was surreal: like something from a _Die Hard_ film thought Shaw as the building began to collapse around them. Logically she knew the whole weight of the building was about to crumble on top of their lifeless bodies, but they managed to make it up to the ground floor with a few close shaves.

The Machine was guiding her, analyzing the structural weaknesses allowing them to dodge the major slabs of concrete missing them by centimeters. Root was surprisingly calm.

Reaching the ground floor Root stopped slightly, scanning the area for the exit She had indicated. Finding it Root grabbed Shaw by the scruff of her tank top (it was the same top. She just knew it. They were the same clothes. Pants cut off at the calf from months of wear, tank top ripped barely hanging on hardened by blood. Shaw’s blood.) and dragged her running as they dove through the hole in the wall, concrete sealing their way.

Landing on the grass Root pulled her up again, dragging them a few extra meters as instructed before falling to the ground. They lay flat, listening to the sound of the previously innocuous tower building crumble around them.

The sounds slowly quieting Root pressed on her coms.

‘Harry,’ she tried.

_‘Root!’_

He sounded relieved.

_‘Thank god. Are you alright?’_

‘I…Finch.’

He seemed to know. He knew something form her voice that sounded eerily like a plea.

_‘Where are you?’_ he asked, tone all business. She was grateful.

As Root gave a location Shaw began to sit up, turning around to look at the mess they’d left behind. She was impressed.

‘Finch, _’_ she tried again before he went offline. Her voice was cracking. Soft. She didn’t recognise it as her own.

Shaw didn’t like how lost it sounded.

‘I found her.’

That came out as a choke. A choked whisper as Root struggled with the words.

Not waiting-nor wanting- a reply Root shut off her com link before Finch could reply.

Shaw stood up and wandered closer to the wreckage: more of a ploy to create distance between the two of them than anything else.

She waited. She had waited for months to see that face she could wait a few minutes more. They both needed it.

Eventually Root moved to stand, dusting herself off and holstering her gun. Shaw had the other one.

She turned to face the woman, taking in the way she stood as she took in the scenery to their right, gun hanging at her side. Battered, greasy, skin coated with dust from the explosion but very much alive.

Shaw turned her head to look at Root.

‘Did you miss me?’ asked Shaw in that gruff Shaw way and it sounded just as she remembered.

She was close-closer than she had been in what felt like forever- and Root was too busy taking in the sight, filling her memory with the sight-the smell of blood and grit and dirt at the end of the fight mixed with a background tinge of C4 and a dash of sweat that seemed to cling to the woman before her.

She wondered when Shaw had showered last.

That seemed irrelevant. It was all relevant. Every single detail stringing Root up where she stood, lighting her eyes in a way not seen for months. Or was it years? Too long.

She realised she still hadn’t said a word and Shaw was waiting. Hadn’t Shaw waited enough? Their rescue was far too late to begin with. It wasn’t even a rescue was it? It was an accident. They had given up- no, she had always hoped; hoped Sameen was alive in some capacity but she had moved on. She had no choice. There was a war. There are sacrifices.

She should have kept hunting.

Root stepped forward and Shaw watched, features etched with puzzlement but somewhere in her eyes Root picked out mirth: she was enjoying this unusual speechlessness and Root felt something flicker like amusement. The old her would have grinned, would have floated at that small burning of laughter present only in Shaw’s eyes but now she could only stare like it was the fire of the Gods and it was. To Root it was.

She wanted to touch. She wanted to yell and scream and cry god she wanted to cry and sink with the knowledge that Shaw was there to catch her. She wanted to punch that look from Shaw’s face: _how dare you_ screamed her thoughts _, how dare you stand there like nothing has happened you died and you left me and_ -it didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

Instead Root smiled, and it was Shaw’s turn to stare. The way Root’s lips curved and her face glowed and her teeth tugged at her lips as if she were ready to break out in a toothy grin any second now.

Shaw missed Bear. She missed guns and good food. She missed her freedom. She missed gifts of pancakes and coffee and deli sandwiches and visits rife with guns and shooting and flashing brown hair and glowing eyes and Root.

Shaw looked at those eyes now glistening with tears and Shaw knew Root would never let them fall. Not now. Even here Root was thinking of her, Root was giving for her, and Shaw would never be able to repay that.

Something about the way Root was looking at her told her she would never have to. She was here. That was enough.

Root wanted to look away (no she doesn’t. She wants to stay in this moment forever) but Shaw’s eyes are like pits and she’s going to find the bottom if it kills her.

(She’s aware it probably will. She doesn’t care.)

Root has words that sing in her head: phrases of nonsense and poetry and stuttered sentences she’d dreamed for this moment but for someone who played with words to the tune of her whims she was so desperately lost for what to say.

It occurs to her that right here, standing in front of something she’d been clinging to so desperately, that it doesn’t matter. The words would probably fall flat anyway.

‘Absolutely.’


End file.
